And for the record, Redfin, the title was a quote taken from one of your Southern California Forum posters, and it was directed at me, or rather my ilk. I started writing this with every intention of giving you the publicity you asked for, the “don’t promote yourself, let others do it, and it will become viral” marketing which has been your hallmark. I changed my mind.
This morning Redfin issued a press release announcing expansion of the “Online Magazine Formerly Known As”, well, something else.
SEATTLE — August 9, 2007: Online real estate broker Redfin Corporation today launched its online real estate magazine, “Sweet Digs,” for Southern California. Home-buyers in Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego neighborhoods can read daily, local real estate market information via the Sweet Digs blog or email newsletter.
The new Southern California Sweet Digs will offer as many as 40 candid, saucy and analytical write-ups each week of recent sales, price reductions, open houses and real estate trends in local areas, including Beverly Hills, Irvine, Newport Beach, Ocean Beach and Westwood. Southern California already boasts some of the top real estate blogs, and Sweet Digs complements them with its hyper-local, data-driven format written by real estate fanatics, not agents.
We are talking about real estate fanatics here, as in, people marked by extreme enthusiasm for real estate, not agents, since we all know real estate agents have little interest in real estate. Fanatics, as in people being paid to show extreme enthusiasm for that for which they were paid. One of my first jobs was at Bob’s Big Boy (during the Steel Age). I was fanatical about the Big Boy Combo, but this was in large part due to the fact that the Big Boy cut my paycheck.
Okay, in all fairness, I know what you were trying to say. The newsletter-blog thingy will be written by non-industry professionals. I get that, and I can see an appeal. And, in the name of fairness, I wouldn’t enlist contributors to my Blog who were Redfin disciples.
Sweet Digs launched December 2006 in Seattle and February 2007 in San Francisco to provide in-person property reviews. The site shut down in May due to a ruling from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS), a broker-owned database of Seattle-area listings; the NWMLS ruled that the property reviews violated rules against advertising another broker’s listing. It relaunched with an analytical format in June. Since the original launch, the Redfin Sweet Digs teams have written nearly 600 posts and increased subscriptions approximately 40 percent; and already more than 1,200 readers have signed up to receive Southern California Sweet Digs.
Commendable, yet I think I saw 1,200 shopping carts at my local suburban San Diego grocery store just this afternoon. It’s a start.
“Southern California’s Sweet Digs covers the largest Redfin market and some of the most interesting real estate in the United States, from Hollywood celebrity hideaways to surfer shacks in San Diego,” said Bahn Lee, Sweet Digs’ managing editor. “Redfin’s Southern California customers have been clamoring for more information, like local market trends and neighborhood news, to complement Redfin.com’s home-search data, which is exactly what Sweet Digs provides”.
Southern California customers have been clamoring for more? I know this is a press release and all, but it sounds just a wee-bit silly, wouldn’t you agree? Since the Southern California Redfin Forum was introduced, there have been a total of… two posts, not counting the Welcome post, and not exactly a public outcry for more and better Redfin dialogue.
Of the two (voting was close), I have to nominate the post with the following excerpts as my favorite:
Most of these big company agents are driven by one thing and one thing only. GREED!!!… They are conniving and con artists. They will undersell your home just so they can get their commission or they will just put it on the MLS and forget about it… I’ve heard stories from other friends too about all kinds of funny stuff. Agents with very large corporations such as listed above are the worst kind. I recommend any seller to please don’t list with them. They will screw you like they almost did my mother-in-law. Redfin is a blessing. The big three in San Diego are going to go out of business one day because of their rip-offs and greed and it won’t be any time soon enough for me.
Redfin, that champion of all that is good and just, the friend of the agents, the company that wants to coexist with traditional real estate business models because they know they can deliver a better choice for the consumer, let this comment slide. Now, I know, they are busy, busy guys (and girls), and the challenge of moderating two posts and a total of 7 comments over almost two months seems daunting, so I will cut them some slack. At least a “Contributor” was brave enough to make this comment in response:
yes, I agree. good post.
Cut the crap. Sweet Digs is just another commercial blog, an adjunct to a commercial website. The entire House (of cards) That Redfin Built is dependant on your ability to slam my business model, to demean me, and to undermine the principles on which I stand. Especially in a market environment that demands full-service, personal attention, hours upon hours of dedication, 24-hour availability, and unending attention to detail, you can not possibly thrive, much less survive. Every press release, every sound bite, and every “I was on 60 Minutes” keynote speech is starting to smack of desperation. It is a Hail Mary for the venture capital, and I am cooked.
I would offer that it would be more noble to walk the walk. I have railed on your business model in the past, as you have railed on mine. The big difference is that you are unwilling to call a spade a spade. You choose (again, because your success depends on it) to bastardize an industry of which you are a part. But, let’s not forget, you are a Real Estate Corporation. You are what you denigrate. Your target audience has evolved from the “geeks with nice homes” to the “people who hate real estate agents”. I fail to find the nobility in that.
I offer two thoughts here. First, pretend to be what you will, hide behind the cloak of Consumer Rights and Power to the People, but you are a real estate brokerage , and I am a real estate agent. Second, do not diminish the value of what we bring to the table. It is, in my in-the-trenches opinion, dishonorable and irresponsible to suggest that the transfer of real property in this market (or any market) is a do-it-yourself, Google-it-and-you’ll-be-fine endeavor. It’s not. That message is not the message of emancipation, but rather the message of an opportunist in search of a buck.
While I predict that your business model is destined for failure, I will concede that the best Redfin can hope for is not total retooling of the real estate industry but a world in which we coexist, a world in which you appreciate some modicum of success, and a world in which we allow the consumers to decide. Facilitating an industry-bashing conversation when you are, in fact, a part of this industry seems short-sighted.
Rory says:
Kris,
Though I’m late to comment, I feel that it is necessary to point out how and why I agree.
Look at the Greed comment above, is almost as if the Redfin evangelists base their preaching on the gospel of Freakanomics.
I would say that is Freakanomics is the complete inspiriation of the Redfin hatred toward classic real estate brokers.
What is so seldom discussed is Freakanomics far-reaching, loosely woven, and not at all based in logic.
Let’s not forget how sumo wrestlers are secretly corrupt. Please.
Most consumers are wise enough to base their opinions on evidence and logic. Of which Freakanomics offers very little.
Back to Redfin, of course their sweet digs blog links to and likes Freakanomics, because hatred toward a traditional business model drives the greed comments. Dare we restart the 60 minutes discussion?
September 14, 2007 — 9:37 am